With Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar having announced his retirement, and the High Court finally having ruled on the matter, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced IDF Major General David Zini as his pick to replace Bar. But, as has been the case throughout this saga, it’s never so simple. Opposition to Zini has already erupted, and the High Court is set to be petitioned against the appointment.
How will it all play out? I explained the situation in a column for Channel 12, a translation of which is below.
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Let’s start from the end: There will be no constitutional crisis surrounding the designated head of the Shin Bet, David Zini. For such a crisis to occur, two sides are needed, but Netanyahu doesn’t really have the troops.
After all, in order to appoint Zini as Ronen Bar’s successor, approval is needed from the Appointments Advisory Committee. But if the High Court issues an interim order preventing the committee from convening, its head, retired Supreme Court Justice Asher Grunis, will not convene it.
In his announcement yesterday about the appointment of Zini, Netanyahu ignored, and not for the first time, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara’s directive to not pick Bar’s replacement—but he will not ignore that of the High Court. And yet, Netanyahu’s decision constitutes a significant escalation in a struggle for control that is anything but legal.
On the right, there is a widespread assumption that the attorney general is trying to force Netanyahu into a corner. She is thwarting his appointment for Civil Service Commissioner, from her perspective, until elections come, and now—due to the “Qatargate” investigation—she has gone far beyond what the High Court has permitted, and is prohibiting him from appointing the Shin Bet chief until legal guidelines are formulated.
Indeed, Baharav-Miara, like Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit, are set on their scorched earth policy. In vain did Justice Noam Sohlberg urge his colleagues not to rule on a theoretical petition that was already redundant after Bar’s resignation. If Bar had left two months ago without the intense battle between the two parties, one of his deputies, a Shin Bet figure, would probably have been appointed to head the organization.
Bar’s affidavits, the attorney general’s war, the High Court’s ruling—all of these led to the selection of Major General Zini, a father of 11, from the religious-combatant wing of the army. The parties’ denials that his identity and biography are the focus of their objections, rather than genuine legal questions, will be made in vain.
After Bar’s resignation, only three people today lead the effective opposition to Netanyahu, and their names are not Yair Golan, Yair Lapid, or Naftali Bennett, but Yitzhak Amit, Justice Daphne Barak-Erez, and Gali Baharav-Miara. Amit and his colleague constitute an automatic majority in the limited composition of the three senior High Court justices, to whom petitions that were once decided by a much larger composition miraculously find their way. As for the attorney general, she uses legal opinions to block every move the government makes regarding appointments.
In response, Netanyahu is trying to break this triangle through legislation—for example, by changing the committee to determine the compositions of the High Court bench. This legislation, however, will not be completed until the time comes to decide on the Shin Bet chief, a position that will become vacant in just three weeks. Indeed, the question here goes beyond the legal field. Unlike the position of the Civil Service Commissioner, which can remain vacant without causing much harm, it is highly doubtful whether the High Court will leave the position of Shin Bet chief vacant, with all the implications it has for national security.
On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine a situation in which Amit and his colleague pave the way for Zini’s appointment.
In other words, Israel is not creeping toward a constitutional crisis, but a game of chicken.
